Failure to comply with Cookie Law

Only 12% of the top 50 British websites have taken steps to comply with the EU Cookie Directive with an onscreen pop-up, banner or tab informing users about cookies on the site, according to a new report from TRUSTe.

But while this number seems low, the study found that none of the top sites in France or Germany has taken any steps towards compliance.

The survey also found that the top 50 French sites drop nearly twice as many third party cookies (434) as the Netherlands (237), while British and German sites drop 406 and 319 respectively.

Looking at consumer awareness of the cookie law, four out of five Brits (81%) are aware of internet browser cookies and 63% are aware of the EU Cookie Directive.

The online study included over 4,000 consumers in France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and 200 top websites.

TV ad boosts mobile traffic to blinkbox by 400%

The ad, which ran during ITV’s ‘I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!’ last Thursday, also led to a 200% increase in total traffic and a 280% boost in new registrations. It is part of a wider campaign supported by radio, outdoor, digital out of home and print placements.

70% of Facebook brand pages are inactive

This is despite the fact that best practice suggests that brands need to post frequent updates in order to maintain engagement with their fans.

The study of 5.7m brand pages found that among the different categories on Facebook, community pages are most likely to be inactive (79.3%), followed by company pages (73.5%).

Furthermore, celebrity pages have seen an increase in the average number of fans from 9,144 in March up to 11,713 in October, but business pages have seen a steep fall from 6,407 to 3,233 fans in the same period.

Email provides highest ROI, but social is catching up

In a Lyris survey of 294 mid-size and enterprise-level marketers, email was cited alongside website marketing as providing the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

Nearly all marketers now use social media tactics (more than 80%), with Facebook cited as driving best results, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn.

51% said they plan to increase spending on Facebook in the coming year, exceeding other social media investments.

Surprisingly, more than a third said they didn’t use mobile marketing tactics.

Brands providing poor customer service set to suffer this Christmas

More than half of adults online (53%) admit that their online and in-store experiences with brands are likely to affect who they choose to shop with for gifts and presents this festive season, according to a survey by Emailvision.

Female shoppers are the most likely to either cherish or begrudge a brand, with almost three fifths (59%) saying their previous in-store and online experiences are likely to influence who they choose to shop with this festive season.

This is compared to only 48% of men whose experiences are likely to influence their shopping habits.

Adobe predicts bumper Christmas for retailers

It revealed that Europeans have already experienced a 150% increase in sales since the first week of November, and will see an additional 25% increase in daily sales following the 26 November.

In the UK, retailers are set for a 150% increase on the average shopping day on Boxing Day.

Of all the European countries analysed, the UK is predicted to see the greatest growth in shopping via a tablet device – 166% year-on-year growth.

The report analysed 150bn website visits to more than 500 Adobe retail customers across Europe and the US.

UK mobile marketing industry

A new report from Marin has revealed that mobile devices accounted for 19% a share of clicks and 13% share of paid search spend in the UK for Q3 – a spend increase of 40% from the end of 2011.

It also shows CTRs for smartphone devices are more than double those on desktops for the quarter – at 5.1% and 2.3% respectively.

Mobile clicks also continue to come at a lower cost, with the cost-per-click (CPC) on smartphones more than half that for desktops at 15p compared to 32p.

UK mums lead the world in smartphone usage

A new report from BabyCentre, The Global Media Mum 2012, has found that 72% UK mums own a smartphone, more than the US (65%), Canada (58%) and Australia (68%)

The research, conducted with over 8,300 mums across 10 international markets and spanning six languages revealed that tech-savvy British mums are also leading the way when it comes to mobile search and shopping.

Among device owners, more UK mums said that they have purchased something (nearly half), or used a shopping app on their smartphone or tablet (a third) than in any other market.

When using mobile as her shopping sidekick, UK mums are also more likely to have scanned a QR code while out shopping or used a barcode scanning app to run price comparisons.

Shazam reveals impressive results

New research from Shazam has found that people who used the app to tag an ad are three times as likely to interact with the brand through desirable follow-up actions after seeing the commercial compared to people who did not use Shazam.

People who used Shazam were more than twice as likely to talk about the brand or the ad with others.

55% of people who tagged the ad cited that one of the reasons they did so was to bookmark it to go back and reference information on the brand or product later in addition to their immediate post-viewing engagement.

For people who were in the market for that product, that number jumps to 65%.

People who used Shazam had a higher recall of the commercial and its message versus people who did not use Shazam.

Comments (3)

Very interesting! Especially the stat that 70% of Facebook brand pages are inactive. Engagement with your audience is very important, so brands that think their Facebook pages aren't beneficial might want to take a look at how involved they are before making that judgment!

Some very interesting and surprising stats here David, especially regarding the amount of inactive Facebook business pages out there. Although what’s not surprising are the stats on email marketing, which still seems to be one of the most effective internet marketing tools out there.

Another stat you might find useful is that, according to our call tracking figures, up to 50% of calls from websites are made on a mobile device, further proving that mobile is definitely going to be hot for marketers in 2013!

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